Center of the Universe
by anna2
Summary: Can you tell when everything changes? A companion piece for Insomnia.


Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me; I'm just borrowing them from CBS, Atlantis Alliance and Jerry Bruckheimer.

Title: Center of the Universe

Rating: K+

Summary: How can you define the center of the universe? A companion piece to _Insomnia._

Notes: The plot bunny moved in again. She seems to like my head. Once again, if you can't figure out who the characters are, then you don't watch the show enough to read the fic.

She was right.

He'd never even seen a wheat field.

Growing up in New York meant you grew up believing one of two things: the world was going to hell in a handbasket and the Big Apple was a prime example, or New York was the center of the universe and all things great.

He subscribed to the latter theory.

He'd lived here his entire life, taking the subway to school and playing ball in the city parks. He firmly believed that there were very few reasons to leave the city and none to leave the tri-state area. You want the beach, you go to Coney Island. Want to gamble? Head to Atlantic City. The best baseball team in the world was in the Bronx, the best football team 30 minutes away in Jersey. A careful search of the city would yield any book, movie, piece of clothing, poster, performance, service and more that a person could want. Columbia University would provide an Ivy League education in Greenwich. Manhattan alone had available every cuisine you could think of, from curry to baklava to whale bacon. There was absolutely no reason to ever leave the city for more than about a 1/2-day, let alone move out for good. The people he knew that left, never seemed happy. There always seemed to be something missing once they got away from the never-ending pulse of the city.

He'd done it a couple of times, a trip up to Albany in high school, away games in college. He wouldn't be able to sleep in the unnatural quiet and would end up irritable and cranky the next morning. His traveling companions would be in the same condition, which only served to further convince him that New York was indeed the center of the universe.

These days it didn't always seem that way. Ever since she'd blown into his world two years earlier, he'd been forced to rethink some (just few really) of his theories about New York. Just a little. For example, he'd never met a non-tourist who thought the city was too noisy or who marveled at 24-hour movie theaters. In her world, a city just about died at 10 pm. Before he met her, he'd have dismissed anyone who uttered those words as a helpless hick. She was different. She was obviously extremely intelligent and very good at her job. So no hick. She came willingly to the city (definitely a point in her favor) but was clearly a bit homesick at times. She wasn't embarrassed by the fact that certain things in the city were unknown to her, like the lingo or the attitudes. She seemed to view most of it as a learning experience. Which didn't mean she wouldn't smack him upside the head when he snickered too loudly. If he didn't know better, he'd swear she picked up that trick from Aiden. She didn't hesitate to challenge him when she didn't agree with his assessment. But at the same time she knew what she didn't know and asked questions. She was tough. He'd never seen her so much as wobble at even the most disgusting of autopsies. She never shied away from the more nasty forms of evidence collection. And no suspect ever seemed to come close to intimidating her.

That last wasn't actually a good thing. When a cop stops being intimidated, it's a good sign they've been on the job too long. Over time, they've seen so much horror and depravity that their natural reactions are dulled. It's a sign of burn out. While most cops are very good at hiding their intimidation, it's almost always evident to their colleagues. To be having this reaction this early in her career, something bad must have happened to her.

His universe seemed to be shifting, so slowly that he didn't even realize it until everything was off-kilter. He'd always had a rule about keeping his personal and professional lives separate. Coworkers were coworkers and nothing more. Especially the female ones. He might flirt a little with Detective Maka but it would never go further. He happened to like his career and since relationships tended to implode on him rather badly, he was keeping them out of the workplace. Until she walked into the zoo and changed everything.

He had wanted to hate her.

She was an intruder, an unwelcome presence and a reminder that his buddy was gone. Logically he knew she'd had nothing to do with Aiden's departure. She'd simply been hired to fill a hole. But it was a hole that was still hurting him and to have her there just made it worse. So they sniped at one another, tried to one up each other and fought like cats and dogs more than once. It wasn't until Mac assigned them to share an office that worst of the arguing died out. And that's when the flirting began. For the life of him, he couldn't remember who did it first. But now it was as natural as breathing and he was breaking all his rules about keeping his private life out of the office.

Which is why he found himself at LaGuardia, boarding a flight to a place he'd never seen and loathed on principle because it had taken her away. For the nine millionth time he wondered when he'd lost his mind. When had the center of the universe shifted?

It had to have been when he emailed her. He still wasn't sure why he'd done it. Ever since the Ice Queen case, there'd been a line between them, never spoken of but mutually drawn and agreed to. She had issues to deal with and was going to keep him at arms length until she'd dealt with them. That much was patently clear. A mutual caseload and a shared office would be the only times their paths crossed for the foreseeable future. As much as he hated it, he'd respect it.

He had, for the most part. Until he'd found a card on his desk saying she was gone. A little eavesdropping and some careful questioning gleaned him the basics. Everything started to make a lot more sense then. A judicious 'net search took care of the rest. Ten years ago she'd lived through one of the worst experiences a human could go through and lived to tell the tale. Further, she worked in a field where she'd be reminded of it daily and did her job exceedingly well. Before he could stop himself, he'd sent the note. He broke every unspoken rule between them and he wasn't even sure she'd know. She might not be checking her mail while she was away.

The reply was waiting in his inbox right after assignments were given out. The stilted tone was what drove him into Mac's office to beg time off and from there to the airport. It wasn't until he was at the gate that the outlandish nature of his actions hit him. At what point had she become so well known to him that a quick email about nothing special could tell him that something was terribly wrong? When had he decided to throw caution the wind about keeping his private life private? He knew he'd be taking one hell of a ribbing, from both Flack and Stella, when he returned and he didn't care. He was venturing beyond the comfort zone he'd maintained since childhood, leaving the tri-state area for the first time. None of that seemed to matter. All he could think about was getting to her and letting her know she wasn't alone.

Since when was New York not the center of the universe?


End file.
